Lifes Rich Pageant

By 1986, R.E.M. hadn't quite cracked the pop charts yet, but fourth album Lifes Rich Pageant (there's no apostrophe in the title, lifted from one of Peter Sellers' Pink Panther movies) is where they shook off the eccentricities of earlier albums. Producer Don Gehman, whose work for John Cougar Mellencamp was all over the radio at the time, gives the album a bright, crisp sound that connects Peter Buck's trademark guitar arpeggios to both his '60s folk-rock precursors and mainstream contemporaries like Bruce Springsteen. Though far from the boys' most vital (or, for that matter, commercially successful) work, Pageant's twelve original tracks remain rock solid, especially in the light of the Bill Berry-less trio's more recent offerings: infectious, no-nonsense rocker "These Days," shimmering single "Fall on Me" (a strong precursor to their later radio hits) and a shambling cover of The Clique's 1969 power pop nugget "Superman" sung by bassist Mike Mills. Lyrically, Michael Stipe was beginning to shift to political and environmental matters, most overtly on "Cuyahoga," directed at Ohio's notoriously filthy Cuyahoga River, which actually caught fire at one point in the 1970s. As part of I.R.S. Records' ongoing 25th anniversary series, a double-disc reissue of Lifes Rich Pageant was released in 2011. Unlike the live sets on previous reissues, the second disc contains a cache of 14 original demos, including early versions of familiar songs and two songs revived on later reissues, straightforward rocker "Bad Day" and delightfully power poppy "All the Right Friends."